{"id":2718,"date":"2009-04-04T20:17:46","date_gmt":"2009-04-05T00:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/?p=2718"},"modified":"2009-04-04T20:24:43","modified_gmt":"2009-04-05T00:24:43","slug":"preparations-for-the-high-holy-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2009\/04\/04\/preparations-for-the-high-holy-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Preparations for the High Holy Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On a bit of a personal note, I spent the afternoon getting ready for celebrating tomorrow&#8217;s high holy day.\u00c2\u00a0 If you&#8217;re interested in how to do it properly, click on &#8220;more&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>First, you make sure you have all the information you need to watch, understand, and celebrate De Ronde van Vlaanderen (&#8220;Tour of Flanders&#8221;).\u00c2\u00a0 <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"imagefloatright\" title=\"ronde_van_vlaanderen_logo\" src=\"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/ronde_van_vlaanderen_logo.gif\" alt=\"ronde_van_vlaanderen_logo\" width=\"129\" height=\"69\" \/>To fully understand the meaning of this one day race &#8211; which is a confluence of cycling, suffering and cobbles &#8211; look to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.podiumcafe.com\/2009\/4\/2\/820114\/official-pdc-tour-of-flanders\">the writings of learned men and women<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Once you feel like you&#8217;ve got a grasp on the essence of de Ronde, it&#8217;s time to focus on the practical aspects.\u00c2\u00a0 Steephill.tv <a href=\"http:\/\/www.steephill.tv\/classics\/tour-of-flanders\/\">fills this need quite well<\/a>, providing the official start time, various sources to watch it live (depending on where you are), full team rosters, and a route map.\u00c2\u00a0 All on one page.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Would that all other holy books were so accessible, eh? <a href=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/196\/462857625_480618c02b_m.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"imagefloatleft\" title=\"Riding up the Muur\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/196\/462857625_480618c02b_b.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"180\" height=\"240\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Next, you need to set your alarm clock.\u00c2\u00a0 What time you set it for depends on where you live, and how you&#8217;ll be accessing live coverage. \u00c2\u00a0 If you&#8217;re in Belgium . . . actually, it doesn&#8217;t matter.\u00c2\u00a0 Because you will *be there*.\u00c2\u00a0 The rest of us, say, on the American east coast, we&#8217;ll set it for around 5am, as that&#8217;ll give us time to get up, get caught up on the very beginning of the race, and find an available video stream in a suitable language (Dutch, French, Italian, and English will be on offer, at a minimum).\u00c2\u00a0 Then we&#8217;ll move on to the next step.\u00c2\u00a0 Because the next step is key.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll go to your fridge and extract the first of a number of Belgian ales.\u00c2\u00a0 Chimay and Duvel are widely available in the US, <a href=\"http:\/\/users.telenet.be\/gerritvdb\/rochefort\/English\/RochefortIndex.htm\">others not so much<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 While you&#8217;re doing that, you should start heating the oil to make a batch of frites.\u00c2\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3205\/3412411259_d5e58da310_m.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"imagefloatright\" title=\"Chimay, Duvel, Orval . . .\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3205\/3412411259_d5e58da310.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"160\" \/><\/a>You will, of course, have previously gathered all the necessary items to make <a href=\"http:\/\/www.belgianfries.com\/bfblog\/?page_id=260\">proper Belgian frites<\/a>, complete with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.recipezaar.com\/Belgian-Mayonnaise-to-Serve-With-Frites-339616\">homemade mayonnaise<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 If you need help with any of these concepts, I <em>highly<\/em> recommend the Service Course&#8217;s guide to proper observance of de Ronde with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theservicecourse.com\/2008\/04\/northern-classics-vicarious-spectators.html\">beer<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theservicecourse.com\/2008\/04\/northern-classics-vicarious-spectators_03.html\">frites<\/a> (I also recommend his pro tip: schedule a longer ride on Monday to properly atone for the inevitable excess).<\/p>\n<p>Finally &#8211; and above all &#8211; you need community.\u00c2\u00a0 If you can gather a living room full of fellow faithful to watch de Ronde with you when it&#8217;s still dark out on a Sunday morning?\u00c2\u00a0 Bless you.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you are part of the far flung diaspora, isolated in your appreciation for the high holy day?\u00c2\u00a0 Commune with your fellow fan here at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.podiumcafe.com\/\">PodiumCafe<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 All are welcome.<\/p>\n<p>\\o\/<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><em>Photo courtesy <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/63498562@N00\/462857625\/\">LeGuape<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On a bit of a personal note, I spent the afternoon getting ready for celebrating tomorrow&#8217;s high holy day.\u00c2\u00a0 If you&#8217;re interested in how to do it properly, click on &#8220;more&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,2],"tags":[501,196,198,199,197],"class_list":["post-2718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling","category-personal","tag-cycling","tag-de-ronde-van-vlaanderen","tag-podiumcafe","tag-steephilltv","tag-tour-of-flanders"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2718"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2724,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2718\/revisions\/2724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}